Tag Archives: Training

Rethinking Plastics training

JOIN OUR TEAM OF EDUCATORS AND ADVOCATES!

Thursday evening workshops, May 3, 17, & 31

Are you tired of seeing plastic junk leaving stores and going straight to the garbage can or, worse still, to the gutter?  Have you been imagining how much cleaner and healthier our world would be if producers were required to take back products that have reached the end of our useful lives?

Green Sangha’s Rethinking Plastics campaign has been inspiring shoppers, business owners, heads of school, and civic policy makers for six years to reduce their plastic footprint.  Our initiatives have included the Fairfax plastic bag ban, waste reduction at the Marin County Fair, elimination of plastic produce bags from Bay Area markets, and the BYOBag campaign in Marin.  Join us in the next phase of our campaign as we take on Extended Producer Responsibility, Getting Off the Bottle, and ending take-out foam foodware.

Since 2006, Green Sangha has made nearly 300 presentations to over 8000 students, community leaders, and eco-activists on the costs of plastic addiction and the path to sustainability.

You can take part in this campaign, whether as a volunteer at tables, a speaker at social clubs and city council meetings, or a member of our strategy team.  To support your informed engagement, this spring we are offering Rethinking Plastics Training, beginning with a presentation by Heidi Sanborn, co-founder and Executive Director of the California Product Stewardship Council, on Thursday, April 19, 7-9 pm, at the Kreps Center, Redwood High School, 395 Doherty Drive, Larkspur.

In 1905, Heidi says, 7% of New York City’s waste consisted of manufactured items.  In 1960, these items grew to 62% of US trash.  By 2009, they reached 71%.  Consider just one small piece of that waste stream:  over 340,000 cell phones thrown away every day in the US.  This is a recipe for disaster.

The recipe for sustainability?  Education, awareness, and action.  To increase your awareness and develop your capabilities for decisive action, Rethinking Plastics Training will follow Heidi’s talk with three Thursday evening workshops, May 3, 17, & 31, also 7-9 pm, in San Rafael.

Cost of the training is $100 ($80 for Green Sangha members; $40 for prior Rethinking Plastics attendees).  Following these sessions, participants may make short presentations on plastics to an in-house group.  All successful presenters will be invited to speak on behalf of Green Sangha, with a small stipend for each talk given in the community.

To register or for more information, contact our Program Director Elizabeth Little, info@greensangha.org or (510) 532-6574.

 

Cultivating the Inner Activist

Learn the art of Sustainability from Within, Saturday April 14, 2:00-5:30 pm, United Church of Christ, 825 Middlefield Drive  Petaluma.
The World Federation of Scientists has identifed 63 “planetary emergencies” threatening our earth’s life-support systems.  With issues such as soil erosion, deforestation, ocean acidification, and increasing concentrations of industrial chemicals in all of our bodies, environmental protection and restoration is the immediate and personal requirement of our every significant individual, and it cannot wait for tomorrow.

In the face of this great need, how do we maintain our balance, sustaining our own lives as we work on behalf of the life we hold in common?  You may be writing letters to Congress and the EPA, organizing an action group, setting up a green committee at your work place, or leading a large organization.  Whatever your field of action, you need deep inner reserves to continue the work with energy, confidence, and effectiveness.

Sustainability from Within is designed to give you the skills you need to start the day with grace, renew and recharge yourself throughout the day, and let go of stress at will.  Stuart Moody, certified yoga teacher and President of Green Sangha, will share a treasury of simple, rejuvenating exercises for tension release and settling into silence for deep meditation.  To complement these practices, we will also explore the technique of Passage Meditation as taught by Eknath Easwaran, and the use of a mantram for calming the mind and deepening awareness.

“Sustainability from Within” means taking care of yourself, practicing the same personal stewardship that we all need to practice in regard to our common body, the earth.

At the deepest level, practicing sustainability from within not only sets a standard for material well-being, it also opens the door for spiritual progress — the restoration of our sense of oneness and expansion of the qualities of the heart.  Friendliness, compassion, happiness, and impartiality are the fruits of inner development, and are the fundamental interpersonal qualities at the basis of a culture of cooperation and peace.  In this way, mindful practice lays the groundwork for a new earth community.

  
Program:  The workshop will focus on the following ideas and skills fundamental to awakened activism:

Somatic awareness

  • Greeting the day with energy and alertness
  • Simple movements for releasing tension and improving posture
  • Moving into stillness

Spiritual development

  • Calming the inner chatter
  • Concentrating the mind
  • Passing the time with purpose

Price:  $30 (Green Sangha members: $20)
To Register:
Stuart@greensangha.org

Instructor:  Stuart Moody, MA
Saturday, April 14, 2012, 2–5:30 pm.  United Church of Christ, 825 Middlefield Drive, Petaluma, CA 94952

“This is a gift to yourself.  Leaders feel such heavy burdens with so much to accomplish and with such little time and money to do vital work. Mindfulness for leaders helps us go to our strong and calm center and let go of the burden.  It nourishes the soul and frees the spirit.”  Maureen Parton, County Supervisor’s aide